JPL lithium doped solar cell development program
One of the most significant problems encountered in the use of silicon solar cells in space is the sensitivity of the device to electron and proton radiation exposure. The p-diffused-into-n-base solar cells were replaced with the more radiation tolerant n-diffused-into-p-base solar cells. Another advancement in achieving greater radiation tolerance was the discovery that the addition of lithium to n-base silicon resulted in what appeared to be annealing of radiation-induced defects. This phenomenon is being exploited to develop a high efficiency radiation resistant lithium-doped solar cell. Lithium-doped solar cells fabricated from oxygen-lean and oxygen-rich silicon were obtained with average initial efficiencies of 11.9% at air mass zero and 28 C, as compared to state-of-the-art n-p cells fabricated from 10 ohm cm silicon with average efficiencies of 11.3% under similar conditions. Lithium-doped cells demonstrated the ability to withstand three to five times the fluence of 1-MeV electrons before degrading to a power equivalent to state-of-the-art solar cells. The principal investigations are discussed with respect to fabrication of high efficiency radiation resistant lithium-doped cells, including starting material, p-n junction diffusion, lithium source introduction, and lithium diffusion.